WhatsappThis is what we are up against!
To understand Netanyahu, you first have to understand something even many longtime Netanyahu supporters underestimate: the extraordinary power of Israel’s unelected bureaucracy and what many call the “deep state.”
Two books are essential for understanding how these behind-the-scenes institutions have constrained elected right-wing governments: Ido Norden’s ‘How Israel Came to Be Ruled by Bureaucrats’ and Erez Tadmor’s *
‘Why We Vote Right and Get Left’.
People often say, “If Netanyahu cannot overcome the bureaucrats, he should resign.” But that misses the point. They underestimate how deeply these institutions are embedded in Israeli policymaking and how difficult they are for any right-wing Prime Minister or elected government to confront.
The remarkable story of Netanyahu is not that he failed to overcome these institutional obstacles. It is how much he managed to accomplish despite them!
That requires recalibrating how we understand Netanyahu, and why his leadership is exactly what Israel needs as opposed to deep-state supported center-left alternatives, like Gadi Eizenkot, seeking to replace him.
It begins by understanding that for most of Netanyahu’s career, his role was largely defensive.
He was trying to limit the damage of an Israeli left deeply entrenched in powerful institutions, international pressure from allies and international bodies, and a legal and bureaucratic establishment capable of delaying, constraining and even blocking elected governments policies and appointments.
Right now, former Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is being cross-examined in court, with his testimony raising serious questions about irregularities in the investigations and legal procedures that ultimately led to Netanyahu’s indictment.
After decades of investigations and enormous public resources devoted to Netanyahu’s cases, these are not minor details. They go directly to how Israel’s most powerful legal institutions hijacked their authority, and the “rule of law”to topple a sitting prime minister! That’s a coup. One can even say treasonous!
Yet where is the media frenzy?
The same mainstream media that amplified virtually every allegation portraying Netanyahu as a criminal is giving almost no attention to the former Attorney General’s testimony that highlights the absolute abuse of power by senior officials in the Justice system.
Surprised?
This is only one current example of the institutional power Netanyahu and Israel’s right-wing governments have confronted for years: powerful unelected institutions, led by the Supreme Court, capable of obstructing policies, appointments and elected officials, while the media establishment never scrutinizes those judicial institutions themselves when questions arise.
This should help explain something about Netanyahu that has frustrated the right for decades.
Despite being Israel’s dominant right-wing politician, Netanyahu historically preferred governments containing a centrist or center-left partner. Such coalitions restrained the right, but they also provided political cover internally and internationally. Netanyahu’s instinct was incrementalism: absorb the pressure, maneuver around it and prevent worse outcomes.
Then something remarkable happened.
Israel’s center-left parties decided to all boycott Netanyahu. They effectively forced him to form the most ideologically right-wing government he had ever led, a government that even Netanyahu did not want.
And, ironically, they helped create the conditions for Netanyahu to stop playing defense.
For the first time, Netanyahu had Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and a coalition pushing him from the right rather than pulling him toward the left. With President Donald Trump’s exceptionally supportive administration in Washington, Israel also enjoyed unusual freedom from American pressure.
The result was a Netanyahu we had rarely seen before.
The government pushed aggressively on victory in this war, against all the leaders of the center-left who publicly campaigned to stop the war in order to make a hostage deal, Jewish settlement, sovereignty-minded policies and appointments that previous governments struggled to advance. The legal battles surrounding the appointments of David Zini as head of intelligence and Roman Gofman as head of Mossad co demonstrated just how difficult it is changing the leadership of Israel’s security establishment. The deep state political left has long understood a basic truth: personnel is policy. For decades, it has used its influence over Israel’s appointment and selection processes to block candidates it opposed and advance those aligned with its worldview, easily overcoming Netanyahu and right-wing coalition partners.
Another current example should have Israelis demanding answers.
Before the previous election, the attorney general permitted the appointment of Herzi Halevi as IDF chief of staff despite the Lapid/Bennet government being in an election period, when government appointments are restricted.
Now, ahead of another election, the attorney general is seeking to forbid appointments by Shin Bet director David Zini, even though these are not equivalent political appointments.
That contrast goes to the heart of the problem. The “rule of law” cannot mean one standard when an appointment is acceptable to the legal establishment and another when it is not.
When legal authority is applied selectively, it is not a neutral legal oversight “, rather it is a political actor exercised through the legal system.
This is why judicial reform matters far beyond Netanyahu.
Israel desperately needs a healthy balance between an independent judiciary and the democratic authority of elected governments. Unelected officials should provide professional checks, but they cannot become an alternative government capable of permanently frustrating policies simply because they disagree with them.
The same institutional problem extends into the media ecosystem. Israel needs greater competition, transparency and less government influence over broadcasting and audience measurement, not to create right-wing media, but to create a genuinely open marketplace where entrenched institutions cannot determine which voices survive economically.
Few Israelis understand how much deep state institutional power is exercised through state regulation of broadcasting and the television ratings system that determines where enormous advertising budgets flow. This government moved to establish a new, more transparent ratings system, only to see the initiative challenged in the Supreme Court. That battle is not merely about ratings. Ratings determine advertising revenue, advertising revenue sustains media power, and media power shapes political reality. Breaking the deep state’s entrenched institutional control therefore requires not government control of the media, but less government regulation, genuine competition, transparency and a level playing field.
These reforms matter because Israel’s challenges are much bigger than Netanyahu.
We need governments capable of defeating jihadi enemies rather than managing them. We need an economy liberated from unnecessary bureaucracy, monopolies and socialist-era structures. We need elected leaders capable of implementing the policies Israelis actually elected them to pursue.
And that brings us to the upcoming election.
The critical question is not whether Netanyahu is perfect. He isn’t. I have criticized him plenty.
The question is whether the realistic alternatives would dismantle the failed structures and doctrines exposed by Oct. 7—or restore them.
That is why everyone should be scared about the possibility of Gadi Eisenkot becoming prime minister.
Eisenkot represents the entrenched deep state unelected bureaucrats, an appeasing security philosophy focused on outsourcing our borders to international guarantees, returning us to the dangerous Oct. 6 conception Israel should be abandoning.
Netanyahu, by contrast, has changed dramatically through this war. Whatever his responsibility for what preceded Oct. 7, he has since demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to withstand international pressure and continue fighting when much of the world demanded Israel stop.
That distinction matters more than personality.
Trump will not remain president forever. The next Israeli government may again face a hostile White House, European pressure, and blatantly anti-Israel international institutions.
Israel therefore needs leadership capable not merely of surviving those pressures, but of reforming the system so future governments in Israel can govern, free of the shackles of the unelected bureaucratic deep state.
That, to me, is the real Netanyahu story.
For decades, he played defense.
Since Oct. 7, and particularly with a government willing to push him from the right, we have begun seeing what happens when Israel finally goes on offense.
We have so much more to accomplish – winning this war on 7 fronts, sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Gaza with all jihadis gone, judicial reform, saving the Negev and Galil, breaking economic monopolies. All things a center-left government will ignore.
The question now is whether Israel continues that transformation or returns to managing threats, appeasing international pressure, trusting agreements that our enemies have repeatedly demonstrated they do not respect, and further entrenching the unelected bureaucratic deep state to protect from future right-wing governments and Prime Ministers.
Israel has spent long enough playing defense. The future requires a sovereign Jewish state confident enough to govern itself, defeat its enemies and finally play offense.
Israelis should examine that all of this before voting, not simply repeat the narratives of an election campaign.
Ultimately, our true Savior and Guardian is God above. However deeply politics affects our lives, we must never lose sight of that truth—and must always prioritize strengthening our faith in Him.
I’m digging much deeper into all this for my book on Netanyahu and the war, the extraordinary story of how Israel rose from Oct. 7 to achieve what few believed possible.
If you want to know when the book is available, click here to sign up.
